There has to be several strains of flu going around, and there has to be an epidemic with one or all of them. I cannot possibly be sick for so many weeks – getting better then getting sick again. My upper respiratory tract is having its own Groundhog Day.

I was inspired by this video I saw on FB the other day about nursing home patients who reacted very positively to music from their era and decided to try it out on my father who is convalescing in hospital.

The trouble with doing that was that my father was never known to like music of any form. But last Saturday when we brought Kai to visit his Gong Gong, I suddenly recalled the only song I’ve ever heard my father sing in my whole life: Quando Quando Quando. I quickly downloaded the Engelbert Humperdinck version from iTunes and played it on my iPhone, waiting for the same excited reaction from my father.

He frowned, looked suspiciously at the phone, then at me, then around the ward. Then when the song ended and I asked if he liked the song, he mumbled as much as his Parkinson’s-gripped vocal chords could muster: “No”, three times.

I felt strangely proud this morning when I drove Kai to preschool. The car stereo had yesterday switched to The Hossan Leong Show CD (in the CD changer since 2009). When I started the car after strapping him into his kiddie seat, this song started playing, and Kai was mesmerized, and when it ended, asked what song it was, who sang it, and whether I could play it again.

Later at home, he recalled and sang the chorus, some bits of verses, and asked if he could listen to it again.

It’s called “No Outside Food”, Uncle Hossan sang it and Papa made up the words.

I forgot to tell him music arranger extraordinaire Elaine Chan made the music and decided it should be a reggae piece (there’s a Cantopop ballad version).

I’m just not sure if he should sing it to his friends in preschool though.

Naomi made the most ingenious plans ever hatched in trying to keep two active but sick with flu kids (one 3 year old and one 4 year old) entertained throughout the Easter weekend.

Because they’ve been sick for a whole week, they weren’t able to socialize (Kai’s birthday party was cancelled), and we had no choice but to make do.

And make do Naomi did. I would never have thought of:

1. The Easter Bunny not visiting a house with crying kids.
2. Having to distract the kids by making them put a carrot (must be organic) outside the front door, so the Easter Bunny will feel welcome.
3. The Easter Bunny usually leaving Easter Eggs in the Condo’s common areas – so that the kids go hunt downstairs for half an hour while Naomi hides the eggs in the apartment, so the kids come back upstairs disappointed, and then elated that the Easter Bunny had snuck in while they were out and deposited a shitload of chocolate eggs all over the apartment.

All this in between having to dispense six kinds of medication three times a day to the kids, in between having to break up fights which occur every ten minutes between them, in between me having to visit my dad in hospital daily, in between having to do long overdue work, I’d say we’ve done pretty well as parents and babysitters this long week and weekend.

What is probably the more amazing thing is that we’ve enjoyed every mad moment of it. But that probably boils down to my wife being the most capable mother on the planet.

We robbed the Easter BunnyWe had a blessed Easter. Hope everyone else did too.Tweet

So our son wakes me up at 3am last night, asking to do potty. Not only that, he asks to be carried to the bathroom because “I don’t want to walk, you have to carry me, Papa”.

Then, while doing his “standing potty”, he makes conversation. Mostly about how the water cistern in our bathroom had a sticker from the Sewerage Department while the one in his bathroom didn’t, and how that meant that the one in our bathroom was ok, and that the one in his bathroom wasn’t.

We’re all down with some kind of flu virus in this household, and our minds are foggier than usual. And Kai’s normal exuberance in conversation is affected by this as well as the fact that it is, well, 3am.

He runs out of things to say after the toilet sticker topic, pauses for breath while he pulls his pants up, looks at me, and softly says, “I love you”, before hugging me tightly.

And that, my friends, is how you make waking up in the middle of the night worth every minute of lost sleep.